Tag: Guide

Beginners Guide To Start Home Business

Any kind of works which is begin with certain level of plan and goal will be successful work. No matter what kind of work you are going to start, Plan and Goad make it easy going and it is proven strategy No any doubt on it. Today’s concentration is guideline for Beginners and Intermediate Entrepreneur

Let’s see how this Article will be helpful to those who are interested to start Home Business.

Successful Step 1 to select proper business:

Find some proven track record Home Business Company. Sign-UP 4-5 Free or affordable programs which has nice compensation and solid product and Plan to sell. Mostly you can received affiliated link URL from which you can earn money if, someone will purchase products or opportunity from your URL.

Success Step 2 Advertise your Business:

More people see your Link will be a more chances to sell your product or opportunity. You try to advertise your affiliate link more and more places to grab more chances. These days there are number of ways to send your link like Search Engine, Bloog, Article, PPC, Leads, Classified aids and many more ways. Do it which is convenient for you within your knowledge and capacity at the beginning stage.

Success Step3 Manage Your Time:

It is very important to get more profit in less time if your time management technique is based on sequence and priority. Set to do list each day for daily work, each week for weekdays monthly and yearly.. this is the great idea which will make you smarter and smarter every day.

Daily to do list: It includes like

a. Classified posting 2 hours

b. Go and surf website forum to get some help.

c. Chatting with Friends.

d. Sleep 1 hr afternoon after lunch.

and so.. on

Weekly Plan:

Sunday: No work rest, relax with friends

Monday: Website Design

Tuesday: Article Writing

Wednesday: PPC Campaign

Thursday: No work

Friday: Email Marketing Campaign

Saturday: Review all shortly…

Success Step 4 Set your goal

If, You really want success in your very own your private business you set your goal according to your effort and finance. How much time each day you give your business and how much expense a day, a week or a month that could help you for your goal setting in accurate way. According to your activity you may chance your setting aswel

Your Daily goad:

Weekly Goal:

Yearly Goal:

2 Years Goal

5 Years Goal

Your life Goal: and More and more…

I hope this Article will helpful for you in certain extend. If, you have any question about this you may send email to me at m.semlar@gmail.comI will try to reply you.

Softdrink Production Technique – Step by Step Guide on How to Produce Softdrink

SOFTDRINK

MEANING: Softdrinks are the class of non-alcoholic beverage, usually but not necessarily carbonated, normally containing a natural or artificial sweetening agent, edible acids, natural or artificial flavours and sometimes juices.

SOFTDRINK SPECIALTY There are many types of softdrink. Mineral waters are very popular in Europe and latin America. Kava, made from roots of a bush shrub, Piper methysticum, is consumed by the people of Fiji and other Pacific Islands. In Cuba people enjoy a carbonated cane juice; its flavour comes from unrefined syrup. In tropical areas, where diets frequently lack sufficient protein, softdrinks containing soybean flour have been marketed. In Egypt Carob or Locustbean extract is used. In Brazil a softdrink is made using mate as a base. The Whey obtained from making buffalo cheese is carbonated and consumed as a softdrink in North Africa. Some Eastern Europeans enjoy drink prepared from fermented stale bread. Honey and orange juice go into a popular drink of Israel.

SOFTDRINK HISTORY

The first marketed softdrinks appeared in the 17th Century as a mixture of water and lemon juice sweetened with honey. In 1676 the Compagnie de Limonadiers was formed in Paris and granted a monopoly for the sale of its products. Vendors carried tanks on their backs from which they dispensed cups of lemonade.

Carbonated beverages and waters were developed from European attempts in the 17th Century to imitate the popular and naturally effervescent waters of famous springs, with primary interest in their reputed therapeutic values. Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1577 – 1644) first used the term gas in his reference to the carbon dioxide contents. Gabriel Venel referred to aerated water, confusing the gas with ordinary air. Joseph Black named the gaseous constituent fixed air.

Robert Boyle, the Anglo-Irish scientist who helped found modern chemistry, published his short memoirs for the Natural Experimental History of Mineral Waters in 1685. It included sections on examining mineral springs, on the properties of the water, on its effects upon human bodies, and, lastly, “of the imitation of natural medicinal waters by chymical and other artificial wayes”.

Numerous reports of experiments and investigation were included in the philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London in the Late 1700s, including the studies of Stephen Hales, Joseph Black, David Macbride, William Browning, Henry Cavendish, Thomas Lane, and others.

Joseph Priestley is nicknamed “the father of the soft drinks industry” for his experiments on gas obtained from the fermenting vats of a brewery. In 1772 he demonstrated a small carbonating apparatus to the college of physicians in London, suggesting that, with the aid of a pump, water might be more highly impregnated with fixed air. Antoine Lavoisier in Paris made the same suggestion in 1773.

To Thomas Henry, an apothecary in Manchester, England, is attributed the first production of carbonated water, which he made in 12-gallon barrels using an apparatus based on Priestley’s, Jacob Schweppe, A jeweler in Geneva, read the papers of Priestley and Lavoisier and determined to make a similar devices. By 1794 he was selling his highly carbonated artificial mineral waters to his friends in Geneva; later he started a business in London.

At first, bottled waters were used medicinally, as evidenced in a letter written by English Industrialist Matthew Boulton to the Philosopher Erasmus Darwin in 1794: “J. Schweppe prepares his mineral waters of three sorts. No. 1 is for common drinking with your dinner. No. 2 is for nephritick patients and No. 3 contains the most alkali given only in more violent cases”. By about 1820, improvements in manufacturing process allowed a much greater output, and bottled water became popular. Mineral salts and flavours were added – ginger about 1820, lemon in the 1830s, tonic in 1858. In 1886, John Pemberton, a pharmacist in Atlanta, Ga., invented Coca-Cola, the first Cola drink.

SOFTDRINK PRODUCTION INGREDIENTS

The ingredients used in softdrinks include Water, CO2 , Sugar, Acids, Juices and Flavours.

SOFTDRINK PRODUCTION PROCESS

Water Purification. Water is treated by a process known as super-chlorination and coagulation. There, the water is exposed for two hours to a high concentration of chlorine and to a flocculants, which removes such organisms as plankton; it then passes through a sand filter and activated carbon.

Carbondioxide and carbonation., Carbondioxide gas given the beverage its sparkle and targy taste and prevents spoilage. Carbondioxide is supplied to the softdrink manufacturer in either solid from (Dry ice) or liquid form maintained under approximately 1,200 pounds per square inch pressure in heavy steel containers. Light weight steel containers are used when the liquid carbondioxide is held under refrigeration. In that case, the internal pressure is about 325 pounds per square inch. Carbonation is effected by chilling the liquid and cascading it in thin layers over a series of plates in an enclosure containing carbondioxide gas under pressure. The amount of gas the water will absorb increases as the pressure is increased and the temperature is decreased.

Flavouring syrup Flavouring syrup is normally concentrated salutation of a sweetener (artificial or sugar), an accidulant for tartness, flavouring, and a preservative when necessary. The flavouring syrup is made in two steps, first, a “simple syrup” is prepared by making a solution of water and sugar. This simple sugar solution can be treated with carbon and filtered if the sugar quality is poor. All of the other ingredients are then added in a precise order to make up what is called a “finished syrup”.

Finishing. There are two methods for producing a finished product from the flavouring syrup. In the first, the syrup is diluted with water and the product then cooled, carbonated, and bottled. In the second, the maker measures a precise amount of syrup into each bottle, then fills it with carbonated water. In either case, the sugar content is reduced to 8-13 percent in the finished beverage. The blending of syrups and mixing with plain or carbonated water, the container washing, and container filling are all done almost entirely by automatic machinery. Returnable bottles are washed in hot alkali solutions for a minimum of five minutes, then rinsed thoroughly. Single service or “one-tip” containers are generally air-rinsed or rinsed with potable water before filling. Automatic filters service from 30 to 2,000 containers per minute.

An Inclusive Guide to Write Human Resource Cover Letters

Writing an impressive and well integrated human resource cover letter needs in depth analysis of all the relevant requirements of the position and a strong decisive mind to fulfill those duties. It needs a highly dynamic and extrovert personality who will actively look into the different matters and work towards the accomplishment of the given objectives effectively.

Thus, while writing human resource cover letters you need to take into consideration various key requirements of the offer so that you can focus on the relevant skills and professional experience in dealing with such issues. Here are some of the guidelines which can help you to improve quality of your cover letter. You can go through them to get an exact idea about what your letter should contain and how to project your profile in a better way.

  • Carry out research of the given position to know more about the duties associated with it. Such a careful analysis helps us in identifying the key result areas of human resource position. List the skills and qualifications which would help you in giving the best result oriented performance. Link your profile with the employer’s expectation by establishing a close connection in between and marketing your personnel management skills and practice.
  • Project your sound decision making abilities and excellence at carrying out recruitment and selection functions. It helps to put forth your abilities to judge properly and thereby, selecting the best candidates according to the organizational requirement. Highlight your prior experience in dealing with human resource functions and good administration skills.
  • Rationalize your interest in the given offer and capabilities to handle the given set of responsibilities. Your letter should follow a proper well integrated format and should give information about the source of the opening and reference if any. It helps the recruiter to correlate your profile with the specific offer.
  • Deal adequately with your management and decision making skills. Professional experience section should state your past performance in relation to handling organizational work force and development functions.
  • Highlight your training and performance evaluation skills required for appraisal system. It should put forth your abilities to judge and provide efficient recruitment, selection, and compensation management functions.
  • Listing such proficient operations should lead towards convincing the employer about your capabilities, sincere efforts and practices. It would certainly help to improve your job prospects consequently.

Thus, human resource cover letter should project your excellence at organizational and administration functions needed to implement organizational policies effectively. Hence, you can utilize your sound knowledge of human resource processes and expertise in dealing with key human resources issues. Thus, the ultimate aim of such letter is to strengthen your profile by offering adequate details which would serve as a basis to the recruiter and help him to rationally judge your suitability for the position.

Traffic Generation Beginner Guide # 3 – How to Use Viral Marketing to Generate More Website Traffic

Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that spreads like a virus to get website traffic. It works by asking a current subscriber to pass on your information to another person. Because it works based on the willingness of people, it goes straight to the inbox of potential buyers and not to the trash or spam folder. If you run an online business and you have not yet tried the power of viral marketing, this article will help to guide you in increasing traffic to your site by taking advantage of the power provided by internet promotion.

Incentives

Providing incentives are one of the greatest motivating factors for a client to forward your ideas to a friend. By receiving incentives, a buyer will guide other potential customers to you and thereby increasing traffic to your site. Incentives may come in the form of discounts or bonuses, free subscription to newsletters, e-books, or free article reprinting or publishing. With these freebies in mind, your visitors will want to help increase your email list and spread your news like a virus.

Informative

Even with the best incentives, your visitors will not risk their reputation by referring useless information. Because people are innately social, they will want to refer information that is highly substantial, relevant and attractive to their email list. Since after all, they act like an endorser by putting their credibility on the line. If you want to guide traffic to your site, you need to create a marketing plan that is compelling and worth sharing. If your plan makes noise or creates a buzz, your idea will spread quickly like gossip in the internet world. The commotion you produce will guide online searchers to your website and generate huge traffic for you.

Publish in Blogs and Social Networks

Blogs and social networks are the lifelines for the interacting online community. By posting your ads in these sites, you can be certain that traffic will go straight to your website. Interacting with people is contagious especially if you have established a brand to your name. Once you make yourself an authority in the field, visitors will be coming to you and you guide others as well to increase your traffic.

Viral marketing employs the idea of spreading word of mouth marketing of your products or services. Like a real virus, it creates noise in the online community and makes your product known. With the generation of more traffic, you then guide your clients through your site. If they land on a compelling website, your enormous traffic can easily turn into sales.

Shuttlecock Woes – A Layman’s Guide to Common Badminton Injuries

A rather common opinion about badminton is that it is one of the safest games possible-a fun, family game innocent of malice and devoid of any real danger of injury. Such notions are highly probable, given the immense popularity of the game worldwide, as entertainment for children during playtime as well as a serious Olympic sport.

However, contrary to popular opinion, badminton players are also prone to injury-some so intense in nature that they may take months to heal completely. According to one study conducted by a Denmark-based group of doctors and published in 2006, badminton injuries occur at an average rate of 2.9/person every 1000 hours of play time. Despite being a non-contact sport, where there is no physical contact between the opposing players, badminton injuries happen frequently-mostly due to over use of certain parts of the body and sometimes because of accidents happening suddenly and painfully. Mostly they occur in players who wear the wrong shoes, do not warm-up, warm-up more than required, sport bad technique, are overweight or generally unfit. Injuries are witnessed in players who have not indulged in sport for a while as well as in seasoned players who have overused body parts such as wrists, ankles, knees and elbows to name a few.

Acute/Accidental injuries:

Ankle Sprains- Although still wanting in detailed statistical studies, some research papers have shown that on an average, ankle sprains constitute more than half of all reported badminton injuries. An ankles sprain can be described as the stretching and or tearing of ligaments and muscles in the ankle. In extreme cases, there may also be damage to tendons, bones and other joint tissues. The resulting bleeding within tissues can cause sudden edema and swelling of the ankle, which in third degree sprains, often takes more than 6 months to heal completely. Ankle sprains are accidental in 99% of the incidences and happen when the player lands on his partner’s foot or on the floor with his own foot turned inwards, outwards or flexed. The extremely quick directional changes required during badminton, often cause the feet to roll over or twist, resulting in a sprained ankle. Fatigue, extra body weight and shoes with more than normal ‘grip’ are frequent contributors to such injuries.

Meniscus Tear- This also goes by the layman-friendly alias ‘Torn Cartilage Knee Injury’ and is as painful as a sprained ankle. During the intricate footwork required during a badminton game, the meniscus or cartilage, which provides a soft cushioning between the thigh and shin bones, sometimes ruptures, causing pain in the joint-line of the knee, swelling and inability to flex the leg completely. This may sometimes also be accompanied by an injured or totally ruptured ligament, which increases the pain factor and healing time. Normally, the swelling and pain settles down easily for most people. However for some sportspersons, the knee can become prone to knee locking or ‘giving way’, in which case, surgery is required.

Muscle Strain- Unexpected movements, such as a sudden overhead smash, may put muscles in various parts of the body under pressure, thereby causing a disruption of fibres in the affected muscle. This can result in pain, swelling, bruising and in extreme case, loss of function. Muscles commonly affected are the hamstring, knee, shoulder and calf, to name a few.

Ocular hurt- A Malaysian study reportedly called badminton the ‘sport which presented the greatest ocular hazard in Malaysia’. Another Canadian study backed up these claims saying that 30-58% of all eye injuries in Canada caused by racquet sports were attributed to badminton. This may seem funny to a layman, since a shuttlecock looks anything but devious, with its lightweight feathery appearance, compared to the heavier balls used in tennis and squash. Although the frequency of eye injuries on an average is more in squash than in badminton, the latter does account for injuries which are greater in severity. This is partly because the bottom round of the shuttlecock fits into the eye orbit and also because of the extremely high speeds achieved during badminton. Badminton is widely considered to be the fastest racquet sport in the world and shuttlecocks have been known to reach speeds of more than 300 km/hour. On 25 September 2009, Malaysia’s Tan Boon Heong set the international smash record of 421 km/hour in the men’s double’s category at the Japan Open 2009. This is 1/3rd the speed of sound at sea level, so one can imagine the effect of a shuttlecock travelling at that speed and hitting one’s eye. It would be painful to say the least.

Fractures- Fractures are fairly rare in badminton, although some have been reported. They normally happen when another player’s racquet hits a player’s arm or leg or if the player himself falls down heavily or if another player missteps and falls/steps on him/her.

Chronic/overuse injuries:

Achilles Tendonitis- Loosely defined, Achilles Tendonitis or Achilles Tendonipathy is an inflammation of the heel cord of the foot. In reference to badminton, it can be described as a chronic degenerative change in the Achilles Tendon (a cord of inelastic tissue connecting bone and muscle running from heel to calf) occurring due to repetitive jumping and running, worsened by poor warm-up techniques. More common as one ages, it also tends to worsen with activity.

Tennis Elbow- Do not be mislead by the nomenclature of this particular injury. Tennis Elbow is often seen in sports other than tennis and very frequently among badminton players. The injury, known as Lateral Epicondylosis among the medical fraternity, is a chronic overuse injury which occurs due to the inflammation of the tendons of the forearm on the outer part of the elbow. Players who indulge in repetitive backhand strikes are often subject to Tennis Elbows. Change of grip size, lack of recovery and excess stretching tend to make them worse.

Golfer’s Elbow- This particular injury is similar to Tennis Elbow in mostly all respects except for the location of the injury. While Tennis Elbow causes inflammation on the outer part of the elbow, Golfer’s Elbow usually occurs on the inner side of the elbow with the pain sometimes radiating along the forearm. It is also a chronic degenerative problem, mainly caused by an overuse of the wrist.

Jumper’s Knee- As the name suggests, this injury often comes on due to repeated jumping on hard surfaces. Known in medical terms as Patellar Tendonitis, the Patella Tendon located below the knee cap is affected over a long period of jumping and landing during badminton. Activity normally worsens the tendon damage and a rupture may sometimes follow with lack of rest

Rotator cuff injury- The most prominent shoulder injury to affect badminton players over time, typically a rotator cuff injury is brought on over time by repeated stress to the shoulder area while playing overhead shots in badminton. It usually begins as a lingering irritation in the shoulder known as an ‘impingement syndrome’, which if left uncared for, worsens to develop partial tears in the rotator cuff muscles. Further activity and stress can cause a complete tear in one or more muscles in the area.

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction- The Sacroiliac Joint connects the sacrum at the base of the spine to the ilium of the pelvic region. Continuous badminton playing with low core stability causes an anatomic issue in this joint, which results in chronic lower back pain. The condition is known as Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction and affected players are advised to refer a physician for a complete evaluation of the condition.

Neck sprains- Focusing on the shuttlecock for long durations and turning one’s neck accordingly in various directions, can cause the neck to be extended beyond the normal angles, especially while playing smashes and strikes around the head, thereby causing neck sprains.

Cramps- A cramp can be described in a badminton player as a sudden and intense pain caused mainly in the leg area due to major loss of fluid, overheating of the muscle and fatigue. Although the suddenness of a cramp could warrant it to be placed in the “acute injury” category, it is considered to be a chronic injury, since it happens after playing badminton for a long time.

Abrasions and blisters- Common yet less malignant as compared to the rest of the above-mentioned conditions, abrasions occur mostly on the hands and knees due to direct contact with hard surfaces when the player falls or scratches himself. Blisters occur due to pus or fluid formation under the skin caused by extended periods of gripping a racquet, an abrasion not being cleaned or healed properly and heels or toes being continually encased in shoes or being in direct contact with a hard surface for long periods.

Prevention and cure:

It would be wise to adhere to the oft heard rule in the exercise arena “You don’t get fit to play a sport, you play a sport to get fit!” Therefore it is advisable for badminton players of all ages and levels to take a few important pre-game precautionary measures, which include but are not limited to increasing fitness levels, better nutrition, decreasing weight, getting the proper shoes, grips and other attire, warming-up before playing and improving playing technique.

One cannot stress enough the importance of a good warm-up session before and cool-down session after a heavy game of badminton. A typical warm-up should include about 5-10 minutes of gentle jogging , spot walking or skipping, followed by short stretches of 30 seconds each, slightly longer stretches on the tighter muscles ending with stretches for certain individual muscle groups like shoulder, hamstring etc. If the player wishes, he/she may also follow this with certain specific exercise drills such as push-ups, sit-ups and the like. Stretching releases tension within muscles, allows freer movement and circulation and not only prepares the body for heavy-duty badminton, but also the mind. Begin the game with around 5-20 minutes of gentle shots with your partner and then gradually increase the pace and tempo of your game. Ideally one must end a game with cool down exercises and stretches too.

Shoes and grips especially are of utmost importance in preventing ankle and elbow injuries respectively. Gripping a racquet too hard or long can bring on a Tennis Elbow, while wearing heavy grip non-supportive shoes cause ankle sprains and Achilles Tendonitis.

To prevent elbow issues, take extra care to buy a good quality racquet which fits precisely into the palm of your hand. Turn your racquet into a powerful, injury-preventing instrument by adding more grip to the handle, taking care not to add too much to disrupt the racquet balance. For those of you, who already have suffered from Tennis Elbows before, it would make sense to wear a Tennis Elbow Compression Strap, which works by reducing tension on the elbow tendons.

Badminton requires the player to slide across the court and hence it would be a good idea to get shoes which have a good arch support, shock absorbers to prevent injury to the ankle, heel cups to keep the heel protected and special soles which do not provide much room for friction with the ground below. Take care to buy a shoe which has a combination of these qualities in order to be assured of all rounded protection. Never wear jogging or basketball shoes for your badminton game and make sure you keep a pair of good badminton shoes aside meant solely for badminton.

A few other recommended products for badminton injuries include orthotics and insoles, knee and Achilles straps, ankle braces, shoulder supports and blister socks.

To prevent eye injuries, many research scientists recommend that certified plastic polycarbonate glasses be worn by beginners and experienced badminton players alike.

Lastly, as a generic rule, make sure you are always well stocked up on water or isotonic sports drinks, especially while playing badminton in hot weather, since like all other sports, badminton too tends to sap the fluids and cause dehydration.

When a badminton injury has already happened, quick and correct procedures are essential for a speedy cure. In case of acute injuries like sudden sprains, strains and tears, the first step towards healing is correct diagnosis. This must be followed by the rest, ice, compression and elevation protocol which is absolutely necessary for recovery. Special care must be taken to keep weight off the injured area and lengthy periods of rehabilitation are a must. In case of a sprained ankle a removable plastic cast walker may be necessary to provide the required support. Tennis Elbows can usually be alleviated by rest and ice therapy, but in the more severe cases, pain relief and anti inflammatory medication and sometimes corticosteroid injections are required. Golfer’s Elbow on the other hand is usually treated with tape, elbow guards, manual therapy and stretching. When Achilles Tendonitis occurs, ice packs are normally helpful, but a minimum rest period of three months is required for the body to produce the collagen tissue in order to repair the injured tendon.

Sounds scary? It doesn’t have to be! Badminton can continue to be a fun sport for all those who have even a smidgen of interest in it. The fear of injury need not come into the picture at all, if the necessary precautions are taken and if players choose to keep themselves intelligently informed about the protocols to be followed- in case of injury.

Keep the shuttlecock flying fearlessly and treat yourself to a great injury-free badminton blast!

The CEO’s Guide To Succession Planning – Managing Risk & Ensuring Business Continuity

Introduction

Once reserved for the upper echelons of senior management, and often viewed as replacement planning should catastrophe strike, today’s succession planning is being redefined. The discipline has broadened in both breadth and scope to become a central component of board-level strategy.

Succession planning focuses on managing risk and ensuring continuity across all levels of the organization – risk of untimely departures of critical personnel, risk of retirees taking their skills and knowledge with them and leaving nothing behind, and risk of losing high value employees to competitors. It does so by helping your business leaders to identify top performers within the organization, create dynamic “talent pools” of this critical talent that other leaders can leverage, and prepare and develop these high performing employees for future roles.

If this was easy, everyone would be doing it. The problem that exists today is that succession planning is barely automated, let alone optimized. This CEO guide provides five key tips for jump starting your succession planning efforts.

1. Automate and Reduce Costs

Today’s succession planning efforts are characterized by fragmented, inconsistent, paper-based processes. Indeed, 67% of companies are still primarily paper-based, according to a global survey conducted by SumTotal.

Conventionally, business and HR leaders will spend weeks or even months manually scouring different parts of the organization for information needed to build lists and pools of nominees and successors for specific job families or positions. The information required to generate the lists often includes self assessments, past performance appraisals (often paper-based), and 360 feedback. After a lengthy period of information gathering and aggregation followed by manual analysis (e.g., nine-box, gap analysis), the results are printed and collated into large three-ring binders for use in executive planning meetings. This time-consuming, inefficient, and costly process is still commonplace today.

To effectively transform succession planning from a manual, paper-based process to one that is systematic and technology-enabled, CEOs must focus on laying a solid foundation supported by strong executive leadership.

Program & Process Foundation

  • Establish dedicated management function (e.g., program management office) with CEO-sponsored executive leader or council (with senior representation from line-of-business, geography, and corporate HR)
  • Define core succession process along with key constituents and tasks at each step of the process; Clearly articulate touch points to other business processes (e.g., performance management, career development)
  • Understand implications of change with emphasis on managers & employees
  • Align program with broader business strategy
  • Determine initial scope (e.g., enterprise-wide, divisional)
  • Define processes independent of technology

Technology Foundation

  • Must support and enable key processes
  • Must integrate learning and development
  • Must link seamlessly to other business processes, especially performance management
  • Must be flexible and configurable to meet unique needs
  • Must centralize and consolidate key information and data
  • Must be easy for managers and employees to use

2. Drive Succession Planning Deeper into Your Organization

Many CEOs still view succession planning as replacement planning to designate successors in the event of a catastrophe befalling senior company leaders. Indeed, succession planning penetrates only the highest levels of the organizational hierarchy, according to survey data. Only 35% of companies currently focus their succession planning efforts on most critical roles within the organization.

Yet a most dramatic transformation is underway: 65% of the organizations surveyed plan to extend succession planning to all critical positions within the two years. Applying succession planning beyond the top layers of management is critical to retaining high performers across all levels of the organization and mitigating the risk of untimely departures of personnel in high-value positions.

The key to extending succession planning into the organization is to provide career development planning to employees. Indeed, fully 97% of business and HR leaders believe that a systematic career development process positively impacts employee retention and engagement. These leaders also believe that providing career advancement opportunities as well as dedicated development planning to employees are the two most important mechanisms for retaining high performers.

Retaining existing employees not only has the potential to minimize the effects of talent shortages, it also provides significant and tangible cost savings (since replacement costs range from 100%-150% of the salary for a departing employee).

3. Establish Dynamic Talent Pools to Improve Pipeline Visibility

Centralized talent pools provide CEOs with global visibility into their talent pipeline and overall organization bench strength. They provide a mechanism for ensuring that the organization’s future staffing plans are adequate, thereby reducing risk and ensuring continuity. To be truly effective, talent pools need to be dynamic in nature. For instance, if an employee is terminated, that person should be automatically removed from existing successor pools. Alternatively, if an employee closes a key skill or certification gap that had previously kept her from being considered as a successor, the pool should be updated appropriately. Talent pools that are inaccessible or not up-to-date are of little use to decision makers.

A key element of making talent pools accessible is in-depth searching for talent exploration. A talent pool is not much good if managers cannot easily view, track, update, and search for potential successors. Dynamic talent pools should take the guess work out of succession planning by aligning employee assessments, competencies, development plans, and learning programs. Proactive system monitoring ensures that as employees learn and grow, talent pools are dynamically updated to reflect the changes. It is this element in particular – supported by robust reporting and analytic capabilities – that helps CEOs make more objective staffing decisions and better plan for future staffing needs.

4. Promote Talent Mobility to Retain High Performers

Industry analyst firm Bersin & Associates defines talent mobility as “a dynamic internal process for moving talent from role to role – at the leadership, professional and operational levels.” The company further states that “the ability to move talent to where it is needed and by when it is needed will be essential for building an adaptable and enduring organization.”[1]

Talent mobility is:

  • A business strategy that facilitates organizational agility and flexibility
  • A mechanism for acquiring and retaining high performing and potential talent
  • A recruiting philosophy that favors internal sourcing over costly external hiring
  • A method for aligning organizational and individual needs through development
  • A proactive and ongoing approach to succession planning rather than a reactive approach

A systematic talent mobility strategy enables business leaders to more effectively acquire, align, develop, engage, and retain high performing talent by implementing a consistent, repeatable, and global process for talent rotation. Without a cohesive talent mobility strategy, CEOs face several risks:

  • Focus on costly external recruiting vs. internal sourcing
  • Wrong hires (cost can be 3-5x person’s salary)
  • Increased high performer churn
  • Reduced employee engagement
  • Reduced flexibility as business conditions change

CEOs should consider the following integrated processes – and a complete technology platform to support them – to promote and enable talent mobility:

  • Current workforce analysis:Includes detailed talent profiles, employee summaries, organization charts, competencies, and job profiles.
  • Talent needs assessment: Assess employees on key areas of leadership potential, job performance, and risk of leaving.
  • Future needs analysis:Development-centric succession planning to create and manage dynamic, fully-populated talent pools.

5. Integrate Succession Planning to Broader Business Processes

Succession planning is not a silo. It implicitly relies on other talent processes and data, especially assessments that provide a performance and competency baseline. Yet unlike a performance management process, which can be executed in a relatively self-contained fashion (assuming it has access to core employee data), the same is not true for succession planning.

Succession planning requires foundational data (e.g., competencies, job profiles, talent profiles, and employee records) and inputs (e.g., appraisals, feedback). Outputs include nominee pools, successor pools, development/learning plans, and reports. To facilitate the level of integration required to get succession planning right, a single, natively-integrated technology platform that centralizes key talent processes and information is required. With this single platform, the time to develop succession plans can easily be reduced from weeks or months to mere hours. The benefits can be significant: reduce costs, reallocate personnel from tactical activities to more strategic endeavors, and mitigate the risk of untimely departures of essential personnel.

Additionally, a single technology platform promotes the linkage of learning and career development to succession planning. By bridging these processes, nominees who are not ready for advancement can be assigned detailed development plans that guide them to improve the competencies and skills required for new job positions. Learning paths and specific courses can be established for employees to facilitate their career growth. By providing learning opportunities and development plans to employees, CEOs can take a more active role in promoting employee growth, retention, and engagement.

Finally, with a single system of record, reporting and analysis is vastly improved, since all relevant talent data resides within a single data structure. Strategic cross-functional metrics can be readily established (e.g., measure the impact of learning and development programs on performance). Reporting and analysis are key to the CEO’s success in managing employee resources and implementing strategies that support corporate objectives and initiatives.

Conclusion

Organizations can realize significant efficiency gains and cost savings by moving from a manual, paper-based succession process to one that is fully technology-enabled. The shift to a single technology platform facilitates extending succession planning deeper into the organization, since a well-architected solution seamlessly links succession to career development and learning. A complete platform improves senior management’s global visibility into the talent pipeline and bench strength, and promoting talent mobility to retain high performers becomes a viable engagement strategy. Succession planning, done correctly, is all about process and supporting technology integration. Without integration, succession planning becomes just another organizational silo.

Endnotes

[1]Lamoureux, Kim. “Talent Mobility: A New Standard of Endurance.” Bersin & Associates, November 30, 2009.

App Development For Property Sales: A Complete Guide To Grow Your Real-Estate Business

None can deny the necessity of mobile apps in our lives. While no business sector has remained aloof from the rage of mobile app development, it is on-demand services, food and retail, and core industry like real-estate which got more share of the pie. Yes, it’s also the retail property businesses that got more benefits in sales after the app revolution and saw their revenue growing high. In regards to this, here is a complete guide on how to make your own real-estate dealings mobile with a useful app.

Trends observed in property purchases

-Most buyers first sneak through the web or online portals to search for property searches before going for other sources like paper advertisements, referrals, etc.

-Millennials rely more on online search for nitty-gritty details or information about a property

-People like to hunt for properties online because they can see a large number of properties.

Types of Real-estate app solutions

-Online property search application

-Property booking solution

-App solution for renting apartments

-Property management solution for owners

While these are the specific apps that can help real-estate business owners as well as buyers, let’s take a look at the key features that an app meant to help rent and property seekers should have.

Direct marketing method

The app should have a direct approach to marketing to promote the properties held by the property owner. The app would list the properties in a fancy manner with location, prices, property aspects, surrounding amenities, landmark, and other related information. In short, the app should be able to showcase all properties in a complacent and clarified manner so that buyers can know every minute thing about a property and can take the decision to choose one smoothly.

Support for location-tracking

Mobile users have been so used to the aspect of GPS or Global Positioning System to navigate here and here that you need to sync your real-estate mobile app to the Google Map to help the property seekers. Integrating the app with geolocation will readily help the buyers to land on the phone’s Google map to know the exact route and convenient mode of transport to the property’s location.

Easy-to-use user interface

You need to keep in mind that a real-estate application is not about showing brilliance and classy design, but is about user-friendliness. Thus, like any other user-centric applications such as eCommerce, online cab services booking, your app should be user-friendly so that users could easily understand how to search for a property. Easy user-interface of an app means quick property search, responsive search filter, hassle-free payments and saving favourites or wishlist.

Scope for customers to place queries

Lastly, do not rule out the need for an online enquiry mechanism in the app like live chat or email integration. It is a must-have for quickly responding to customers who are interested in a property and wish to know more apart from what provided in the app. They might want to talk to the seller directly.

Real-estates is the large and flourishing industry and to get a grip over its every potential you need a mobile app too. It would help your business make more revenue and grow by making your properties more easily accessible to prospective customers. However, make sure to keep in mind the mentioned features while you have your app crafted by an app development company.

How to Start a Business From Home and Make Money Online – Your Step by Step Guide to Success Part 2

If you’re looking to start a business from home and make money online, you don’t want to go it alone. The home based business industry is the fastest growing industry for a reason, but many people are making the same mistakes over and over again. After all, the online business world can be an intimidating arena to step into with no experience or background. The good news is that you really don’t need any experience. You can avoid a lot of the basic mistakes that most people make by connecting with a mentor and following this simple step by step guide to setting up online businesses from home. If you’ve already read part one, hopefully you’ve followed those first steps, and connected with a mentor who can help guide you through these steps and support you in your success.

Step 1 – Find a Product or Service To Offer

Again, going it alone is not recommended, especially for the beginner. There are some great companies that you can partner with that will give you the opportunity to offer their products, training programs, or services. Creating your own product this early in the game is not recommended. But the skills you learn as you represent someone else’s products can be directly translated as soon as you’re ready to launch your own, if you decide to.

For now, focus on finding something that is UNIQUE and can STAND ALONE apart from any business opportunity. It must be unique; otherwise someone will replicate it and sell it for less. This can happen faster than you could possibly imagine, so be sure you’ve got this element handled. The standalone piece is crucial as well. Some online business opportunities are really only selling their business opportunity, and will paint dazzling pictures for what’s possible for a select few. However, when it comes down to it, companies like this with no standalone product will be shut down, because that is illegal. Find something you can stand behind and believe in, whether it’s a product, training program, service, or even a person.

Step 2 – Set up Your Websites and Landing Pages

These will be where you drive your customers where they can enter their information (so that you can follow up) and have the opportunity to learn more about your product/training/service and make a buying decision. There are companies out there that can set up customized landing pages and websites for you (Marketing Burst), so that you don’t have to go to the trouble of learning all of the complicated ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO), meta tags, and keyword optimization. For the beginner these are ideal. Then later on you can create your own when you have the skill set. Partnering with the right company can often mean you have several pre-set custom landing pages and websites already optimized for you, ready at the push of a button. This would be another major advantage for the beginner and the person looking to get results fast.

Step 3 – Set Up Your Auto responders

Auto responders are a key tool when you start a business from home to make money online. Basically, they are a set of pre-written emails that get sent automatically to your prospects after they submit their information on your landing page. If you want to get results like the pros, you’re going to need to use the same tools they use. The good news is, there are some great companies that offer free programs that will set up capture forms (to collect your prospect’s name, email, phone, etc.), manage all of your pre-written emails to your prospects, track stats, and act as a contact manager (for example, Get Response, or Aweber). Remember that this is how you’re building a relationship with your new prospect. Focus on helping them find what they’re looking for, and providing them with great value.

Step 4 – Set Up Your Sales Funnel

You’ll want to establish a funnel system that can qualify your prospects for you in a step by step fashion. A funnel system helps them to understand what it is you have to offer, and gives them an opportunity to have their questions answered. This often involves an opt-in or landing page, a website, a webinar or teleseminar presentation, a 3-way call, and ultimately a conversation between with you. The beautiful part about online businesses from home is that the first 3-4 of those steps can be done on autopilot while you sleep, play with your kids, hit the golf course, or travel the world. Once again, partnering with a solid company would likely mean these are already in place for you.

Step 5 – Drive Traffic!

The name of the game in real estate is location, location, location. When you start a business from home to make money online, the name of the game is traffic, traffic, traffic! You probably now understand that with your funnel system in place, being successful online simply becomes a matter of getting as many people through that funnel as possible. If your product is right for them, and the timing is right, they’ll buy. If not, they won’t, and you move on to the next person. It’s very much a numbers game. So long as your system is working, more traffic means more sales.

There are so many ways to learn to drive traffic to your landing pages and websites. Generally speaking there are two approaches – you can work for your traffic, using free methods but putting in your own time and energy (writing articles, producing videos, using social media), or you can pay for your traffic (using piggy backing methods placing banners on high traffic websites, running PPC campaigns, etc.)

Follow these simple steps for setting up online businesses from home and you’ll be well on your way. Why do so few people who start a business from home make money online? Simple. They ignore these simple, time tested, proven steps to success. Take control of your future. Connect with your mentor and start creating the life you deserve today.

A Guide to Building Websites That Work

Caution:

If you are looking for “Get-Rich-Quick,” close this page. You are at the wrong place. Common sense dictates that is impossible. If you intend to build a major online corporation, you need a Webmaster and programmers.

But if you are willing to work to build a genuine small business with long-term value and profits, read on. You have come to the right place, the only place, where the average small business person can indeed build a profitable online business.

We all have different reasons for building businesses online.

It depends on who you are, from raw “newbie” to marketing expert.

It depends on what you want out of business and life…

* Freedom and self-reliance?

* Increased revenues from an existing business.

* Growth and independence?

* Living life with passion.

* Recognition and support?

* Community and belonging.

* The right skills and control?

* Additional family income & time.

No matter your reason, you surely want to succeed. But the bitter truth is that only a few people have or know what it takes. Your Web site either makes the sale, or it doesn’t. Ninety-nine out of a hundred sites still don’t get the order.

We blame that on suspicious, scared Web-consumers.

Wrong.

No matter what you offer on the Web, your site must SELL! Are you selling digital goods like software, video games, or info-products? Do you sell freezers to Eskimos (to store the ice you sold them), or other hard-good widgets?

Got a store with dozens, hundreds, even thousands of items to sell?

Think there’s no way you could sell hamburgers on the Web? Why not use your site to sell visitors on registering for digital discount coupons for your special of the month?! Just print and present one to the restaurant nearest you!

Maybe you’re looking to expand regional sales into global distribution? Or do you want to generate leads for your OEM business? Are you considering adding an online profit-center to take advantage of your existing offline store’s infrastructure (1-800 number, warehouse, inventory, database, etc.)? A no-brainer… if you do it right!

Or… has your own profitable Web site just been a dream until now? Well, everyone’s an expert on something!

So…

Think! Brainstorm a little. Can you offer…

* world-class consulting services on your special area of expertise?

* special travel services, like bike tours through the Andes?

* unique info-products, based on knowledge from your job or hobby?

* Multi-national corporation? Entrepreneur with an idea?

It doesn’t matter. Here’s the bottom line.. you can make our site sell.

Just last week my family(extended) had a get together, something small. Like most of such occasions everyone wants to know what everyone is up to and we all make jokes about the little things. I am a natural, I usually get everyone’s attention for being outspoken, sort of a Bilbo in the Baggins family.

During dinner we had hardly eaten a chunk or two when my little niece turned to me and said,” Can you help me make my site sell?

I was taken aback because before now I had no idea she had a website or was trying any making ventures online. The truth is that she had secretly spent all her pocket cash for six months on paying for hosting, and a domain. She had installed a shopping cart, tweaked it in every possible way. But after 8 months she had received just 18 unique visitors and made no sales of her art works even though they cost just 20 dollars.

I decided to help, of course I had no choice.

I took her through a 3 week class. I am going to try to summarize the process in this article, cos I found out that there a lot of out there struggling with building a website and fail miserably talk less of making money from it.

So many people out there even go a step further buying resale rights products, books etc.

These are not wrong in themselves as I have personally written some myself. But if you do not understand the fundamental principles about businesses on online you will fail and loose your hard earned cash too.

But first lets out line the problems my niece was having. She mentioned so many things but here is a summary

1. No traffic

2. No sales

3. Domain Name irrelevance

Everything we build in life should be anchored a good foundation, this also goes for building websites for profit. In our case here’s the foundation. . .

C-T-P-M

Content Traffic Presell Monetize

Step 1 – Understand the difference between “PREselling” and “Selling.”

Content -Traffic – PREsell – Monetize.

What’s it all about? Where’s the magic?

No magic. And it’s all about your “pre-customer,” about the hundreds of millions of people who surf the Net every day…

People use the Web as a searching tool. They search for credible high-value information or solutions, anything that can fulfill a wish that they hold dearly or solve a troublesome problem that they are experiencing.

Success on the Net all begins with a critical mindset shift. This means replacing that well-known offline strategy of “location, location, location” with…

“Information, information, information.”

In the online world, no one just happens to walk past, see your business and enter your Web site. Surfers on the Net are not looking for you or your business. People search for information, for solutions. After all, if they knew you existed, they would not be searching. They would already be customers.

Online, you must generate your own traffic to thrive and be profitable. Therefore, your primary task, well before you make your first sale or recommendation to a customer (often well before that person is even aware that s/he is shopping!), is to provide the information (i.e., content) that people are searching for, in a way that Search Engines like. In other words…

Give them what they want.

A Theme-Based Content Site contains information based upon a main subject. Each page focuses upon a single topic that is related to that theme. The net sum of all the information on all your pages forms the Content of your site.

These specific “topical pages” are called “Keyword-Focused Content Pages.” They rank well with the Search Engines (SEs), attracting lots of targeted Traffic.

The high-value content “warms up” (i.e., PREsells) visitors by OVERdelivering what they came for… information.

Visitors start to like and trust you (based on what you write about on your site). Your content-rich site builds trust and credibility… “PREselling!” The visitor begins to like and respect you… you are a knowledgeable expert.

This credibility creates an open-to-buy or open-to-hire mindset. You are now a mere click away from Monetizing (converting PREsold traffic into dollars)… affiliate links, order pages, contact forms, Google ads, your own store, eBay auctions, or any other way to monetize — they are now just one friendly click away!

This proven, results-generating process…

CONTENT -TRAFFIC -PRESELL – MONETIZE

… works. No matter how you plan to monetize…

* merchant-partner sites that you represent as an affiliate

* an order page on your site where a prospect can buy your own products (hard or digital goods)

* a contact form which visitors can use to follow-up with you for more details about your professional services or Network marketing business opportunity

* your own online store

* a site that sells a related, non-competitive service or product, in return for a referral fee

* your established sales site (become your own best affiliate!)

* an ad from Google’s AdSense program

* any combination of the above or others!

PREsold visitors convert more easily and more frequently into paying customers… which is exactly the result that your online business wants and needs in order to grow. That is the winning advantage of a “Theme-Based Content Site.”

Contrast that to a visitor who arrives at a sales site… no inspiring, relevant, editorial content. Selling merely tries to get the sale. If you do not have a brand (and most of us do not), if you have not built a relationship with your visitor, your chances of selling are near-zero.

Why? Well, which person would YOU respond to? A stranger with a sales pitch or a knowledgeable friend/expert making a recommendation? Become that knowledgeable friend/expert.

Great content encourages your visitor to think about you as a “friend/expert” rather than a stranger. And if you create a truly info-rich site, you’ll actually become a trusted expert, sharing your wealth of information. You basically create your own brand… your “brand of one.”

People “buy” from those they know and like. They resist sales efforts from everyone else.

And that is why 99% of small businesses fail online.

Selling is not your site’s first priority. (In fact, you may decide not to sell anything and become an “infopreneur” instead!) Your #1 priority is to PREsell through the delivery of the information that visitors seek.

You “monetize” (i.e., convert visitors into money) later.

Step 2 — Act upon the “PREselling Reality.”

As just mentioned, the reality of PREselling is that it works… if YOU work it! Thousands of ordinary, everyday business people have done exactly that.

The reality is that it is all under your control, far more so than in the risky, offline business world.

What about building traffic, ranking highly at the Search Engines? Do you think that only professionals (called Search Engine Optimizers or “SEOers”) can do that? No, in fact you have the huge advantage.

Search Engines are in the business of delivering relevant and high-quality results.

No need for luck. No need for SEO expertise. Simply follow and trust the C – T – P – M process.

It’s through the Search Engines (SEs) that you will reach your visitors. Most surfers won’t scroll past the first 10-20 listings on a Search Engine’s search results pages. That is where you will be.

And second, the description about your site will have to be interesting and credible. So you will “get the click.”

When a visitor finds you through a Search Engine like Google (or Yahoo! Search or Windows Live), think of how smart s/he feels. After all, s/he found you. You didn’t advertise (actually, once you build traffic, you can sell advertising!). All that remains is for you to OVERdeliver — PREsell!

Once you realize the logic and power of C – T – P – M, then you know that success really is DO-able. It is indeed “yours to be had.” And if you don’t succeed immediately, keep trying until you find the right approach.

You only fail when you quit. Patience and persistence ultimately rule the day. Or, to quote Calvin Coolidge…

Persistence wins. Keep pushing it… the business you build will take on its own momentum. It will fulfill all your objectives, if you put in the BAM (“Brain and Motivation”), the time and persistence that are required to grow anything that is worth achieving.

Bottom line…

You understand C – T – P – M. More importantly, you are ready to invest (and “invest” is the perfect word!) time to build C – T – P before you Monetize. Once you do, converting PREsold visitors into money is the easiest (and most fun!) part of your online business

Step 3 — Monetize! Maximize Conversion Rate and profits.

Monetizing PREsold visitors is easier than falling off the proverbial log. DAY 4 discusses the wide variety of ways you can monetize. We’ll cover this topic at that time.

The key point for now is… You are not your monetization model. Do not think about “being an affiliate” or “selling an e-good.” As a matter of fact, do not decide upon any one monetization method.

First and foremost, you are in the “Content Delivery Business.” Then you monetize.

And… Diversify. Have several strong streams of income. For example…

One of your pages may feature Google AdSense ads and affiliate links. You might choose to add an e-commerce store to sell hard goods. And you sell some e-books via ClickBank, too.

However you monetize, do not push your visitors. Let the content pull them through to your revenue-generating locations rather than stopping them in their track.

This could be a link to a sales page for your product or service, to your merchant-partner’s site or to a click on a Google AdSense ad, for example.

Instead of pushing them, make them want to click. It makes all the difference if your visitors feel that it’s their idea to deliver your “Most Wanted Response” (“MWR”).

Once you have PREsold traffic, monetizing is limited only by your imagination!

So let’s not worry about that now. Instead, let’s talk about the broader concept of profits…

There is an easy business equation to follow in order to maximize profit. It’s the same equation, whether you are working online or off…

INCOME minus EXPENSES equals PROFIT.

It’s not a complicated equation, true! But people tend to forget about it.

If you can increase the amount of money that is coming into your business, and lower the amount of money that is going out of your business, you will have more money staying with your business.

So let’s start shifting that profit equation in your favor (and your bank account’s!) by improving the first part of the equation…

Income

There are two major ways to increase income (i.e., the amount of money you make through your products, services, and/or other monetization efforts). You need to…

1) Expose more visitors to your monetization models…

This means that you need to attract more targeted traffic, people who are specifically interested in your theme and your topics (related to that theme) on your Web site. High-value content is the key factor behind traffic volume and your ability to increase and sustain it. And here’s the good news…

If you get the keywords “right” on your page and if you have great content, you will have substantial, evergrowing traffic! And here’s the best news…

Lets move on

* Offline, it’s all about “location, location, location.” You put your business where crowds go. Passerby traffic!

-AND-

* Online, millions search for “information, information, information.” But they do it solo. There is NO such thing as “passerby traffic.”

You are really ready if you understand that the M is the easiest part of C – T – P – M . And speaking of C…

To succeed online, you must start where your “pre-customers” start…

People search for information, look for solutions. They are not looking for you. Give them what they want by converting your knowledge into high-quality, in-demand CONTENT.

Before you can do that, you must figure out…

* what they seek

* how often they search for it

* how badly they want it

* what competitors already provide, and how they do it

* what Content you will deliver, and how

Your next goal is to find your best Site Concept.

The rest of your business rides on your choice of Site Concept.

Let’s talk a bit about site concept.

Here is how you will get to your Best Site Concept…

1) Create a list of potential Site Concepts and choose your top 3.

* Everyone Knows Something About Something

* Three Site Concepts? Why Three?

* Do Some Quick Research.

2) Use tools like wordtracker dotcom and Google AdWords reserach tool to research Site Concept(s). Research keywords for each of your top 3 Site Concepts.To arrange and research your keywords even further,I recommend you use keywordresearchlab dot com/

3) Evaluate the following factors for each Site Concept…

* Number of Keywords

* Profitability

* Knowledge

* Passion

* Theme “Sexiness”

* Monetization Potential

What Is a Site Concept?

It is the central theme, the niche, upon which you will base all of your site’s Content (hence the term “Theme-Based Content Site”). Every page that you write will be about a topic that is related to your Site Concept. Each one of those topical pages focuses on a Specific Keyword, which is why I also call these pages “Keyword-Focused Content Pages (“KFCPs”).

Now to finding your Site Concept… your theme… your niche that you CAN master.

There is plenty of room for more than one Web site in any niche. Don’t worry when you find competitors. You have a huge advantage, — remember that 99% of small business sites fail, even the most gorgeous ones that cost $20,000 to build! So…

How to Recognize Your Best Site Concept

Bottom line on choosing your Site Concept?…

It takes just as much time to build a low-potential business as a high-potential one. So invest the time now, get the Site Concept right, and you will maximize your returns later, earning far more income per hour invested down the road.

The Plan… How to Develop Your Best Site Concept

Most people fail in any business because they don’t plan adequately. If you pick the wrong concept for your site, if you develop the wrong topics for your Web pages… you’ll get the wrong results…

No traffic = No income.

This will not be your fate. So get to work on your Best Site Concept Plan… Step 1 – Create a list of potential Site Concepts and choose your top 3.

Write down ideas for good “Site Concepts” as they hit you — make your list as long as you can. What do you know and love? What have you learned “on the job?” As you read the daily newspaper, or watch a talk show on TV, or chat with friends/colleagues, or browse a book store, keep your antennae up for new ideas.

Think… you may know so much about something that you overlook it

Everyone Knows Something About Something

What’s under your nose?

Use Common Sense

What is “too broad?” It’s any idea where the market is too big. For example, “travel” was an extreme example. “Italy” is too broad. Choose “Sicily” instead (if you know it.) And “New York” is too broad. Instead, try “Tribeca”… or go with “New York Pizzas” instead (if you love them!).

“Too n-” is the opposite. There just aren’t enough people interested in Caltanissetta, a city in Sicily. Sicily is “just right.”

“But how do I know whether it’s too n- or too broad if I’m just starting out?”

Good question! Use your common sense and knowledge of each niche, of course. And there is one good technique that helps, too!

So what are the key factors and their guidelines?

#1) Number of Keywords

A Site Concept that delivers more keywords is better. It offers the ability to create more Content. So, everything else being equal, choose the Site Concept with 300 pruned keywords over the one for which only 100 “made your cut.”

#2) Overall Profitability

The more keywords that have higher Demand, lower Supply and higher Profitability (Value Demand/Real Supply ratio), the better. Again, this is not an absolute, just an indication. Use your judgment.

Compare the overall Profitability of one Site Concept to another. How many solidly profitable keywords does each have? (Remember… the Profitability numbers are useful, but use your judgment to make the final decisions.)

#3) Knowledge

Think about each keyword as the topic for a future Web page (that is what it will become). Do you already know what you could write for those words? Obviously, lean towards the Site Concept that you know the best.

#4) Passion

Just as important… which Site Concept excites you the most? Choose a less profitable Site Concept if the thought of building a site about it excites you much more! It will be fun to create interesting Web pages about the subject area and to do the necessary research to stay current. It’s not work if it’s fun.

#5) Theme “Sexiness”

It’s not just your excitement that counts. Some Site Concepts are more apt to excite visitors. Trust your gut feel about which would excite visitors the most . It’s easy to PREsell your way to a strong “Brand Of One” with a fun, exciting theme.

#6) Monetization Potential

Look for a Site Concept that offers the potential for you to build multiple streams of income. C T P is useless if there is no M potential!

You must be able to Monetize your PREsold traffic. And the more ways to do that, the merrier. How many of the following could you (eventually) implement on each Site Concept, and with what kind of financial potential?…

* Represent the products/services of related, non-competing online businesses (i.e., affiliate income).

* Partner with an offline business, sending them customers, on a pay-per-click, per-lead, per-sale, or per-month basis

* Sell your hard good or e-book.

o Earn income by placing advertising on your site, such as Google AdSense, or by selling advertising directly. (Guess what? As your site grows, advertisers will approach you!)

o Sell your services (ex., develop clients for your copywriting or java-programming business).

o Supplement/build your local offline business.

o Attract more bidders for your eBay auctions.

o Build warm leads for your Network Marketing (“MLM”) venture.

o Rent — anything from heavy equipment to extras for movies to your own Cayman Island villa.

o Traffic — send traffic to your own e-commerce business (ex., your Yahoo! store or e-commerce site).

Finalize your Site Concept and get a good Domain name.

Visitors know great content when they read it. Winning, PREselling content “works” at several levels…

1. It has a “been there… done that” voice and flair.

2. It has specific, “zing knowledge” that comes from real experience.

3. It is supported by a depth of useful information. This is where good reference material plays an important part.

4. It is consistent, from page to page, from e-zine issue to issue, from week to month to year.

5. It is for the customer, absolutely.

Step 4 – Ready? Name that domain!

A good domain…

* is short and sharp

* is meaningful — conveys a clear message

* is easy to spell

* is easy to remember

* is unique, descriptive, and “you”

* is solid, classic, not hokey

* contains your VPP for human visitors

* contains your Site Concept keyword for spider visitors

* is attractive to humans (ex., “cayman-island-beaches dot com” “cayman island” is there for the engines and “beaches” is there for humans)

* ends in the classy ” dot com,” ” dot net” or ” dot org” (by far, the best regarded by surfers).

When do you use dashes in your domain name?

If both versions of a 3-or-more-word domain are available, use dashes because they make the word breaks more obvious to the eye. Also, the engines usually treat a dash as a space. So it may be more likely to “see” the entire string as separate words.

Dashes are less important if your domain name has only two words in it. See how netpricing dot com and cyberpricing dot com don’t really need the help of a dash?

Use dashes (even if the domain only has two words) if the non-dash version is already being used by someone else. But be sure that you are not violating anyone’s trademark (details on this below).

Note: If your business is 99%+ online, the offline issues of dealing with dashes are not so important (i.e., telling people how to spell it, people forgetting to put the dash after reading your print ad, etc.).

Here’s the bottom line…

Domain names are so cheap that it’s a good idea to take both versions (with and without the dash), just to make sure that a competitor does not take names that could be confused with yours. You can always make one domain point to the main one.

Offline vs. Online, and Branding

If you already have an offline business, it may be important to use your business name as your domain name rather than create a new domain name for it. On the other hand, you could give the site a name that uses your VPP, then use a domain redirector in your hosting to park and redirect your business name to your site. This works particularly well with business cards and other forms of offline, local marketing.

If you want to brand your site, you’ll want to get really creative and come up with a one word domain name. For example, if you wanted to brand a site about credit cards, you might use the name “creditopia dot com” or “crediteria dot com” (sorry, they’re both taken!). Easy to remember, and have a VPP (“credit utopia” or “credit cafeteria”).

Or you may find a domain name by simply adding a letter or two as a prefix or suffix to your site concept keyword (ex., icallcard dot com).

You’ll have to be more creative to come up with a short domain name that’s still available, but a little extra time spent now could pay big dividends later.

Why most people fail

Why did most people fail? I think the reason was that the whole process of running an online business is just too complicated for most people. There are lots of ways to screw it up. It pained me to visit some of those sites and notice a dozen glaring mistakes within the first few seconds – blogs that didn’t enable permalinks, cutesy headlines with no keywords in them, bad choice of topics, page titles that still used the WordPress default format, hideously suboptimal ad layouts, hidden or missing contact info, etc. Any one of those mistakes could cripple a site’s results. More than one is a practically a death sentence. Such mistakes cause problems both for human visitors and search engines.

But at the same time, there were teenagers humming along just fine, generating four figures in monthly income after working on their sites for 6-12 months. They didn’t necessarily get everything right, but they were Internet savvy enough to fix the big problems early.

What bothered me most about this was that people were too often failing because of the technology. Many of them had great ideas and very good content. It was a shame to read some of their articles and think to myself, This is great stuff… too bad no one will ever see it.

The cruel and unfair part of online business is that if you aren’t very Internet savvy, you’ll make mistakes on the technical side that you’re totally oblivious to. You may get the content side right, but the technology will bite you and cripple your results.

But it’s still a pretty unfair situation. There are people who can write great content who really deserve to be getting a lot of readers, but because they don’t understand permalinks, RSS feeds, pinging, or other technologies, they’re doomed before they start.

Once I saw this happening, I basically decided I’d better shut up about encouraging people to run an online business. People kept asking me for new articles on the subject, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. I was concerned I’d be doing more harm than good.

A new solution

Recently I came across a vastly superior solution to this problem – a way for people to build a successful online business that doesn’t require them to become technology gurus.

What I recommend is a service called Site Build It! – it’s an all-in-one solution for creating and building an online business. You pay an annual fee for the service, and they provide you with all the tools you need to build an income-generating web site. They host the site for you, they help you register your domain name, and they provide integrated tools like point-and-click page generators, built-in blogging, form builders, RSS feeds, and lots more. Many of these details will be handled for you, so you don’t have to worry about them.

You still create your own content, and you use their tools (or your own familiar tools) to create a site based on your unique ideas. You focus on the content side. They help you with the technical implementation side.

I don’t recommend this solution for everyone. If you’ve already built a successful website that generates thousands of dollars a month for you, you won’t need this. I don’t need it myself. But if you’re one of those people that have been held back by the technical complexity, then this is definitely something you should look at. This is the kind of solution I’d recommend in a heartbeat for my non-programmer friends who want to get something going online but quickly become lost in a sea of jargon.

There’s a lot to explain about this service and why I think it’s a great idea for most people interested in building a successful online business. So I wrote a whole separate article about that here

Site Build It is a suite of tools for building a website. Site Build It! (Site Build It!) the only all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, and site-marketing product that makes it easy to build a professional, popular, and profitable business.

they follow all the techniques I have listed here and even add more to ensure success.

I’m probably turning into a bit of a salesperson for Site Build It! because I really believe this is a great deal for a lot of people. Not only will building your own online business give you a quantum leap in your own personal development, but it can also provide income to fuel your ongoing growth.

I wish you all the very best.

Beginners’ Guide – Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

We all are beginners at some point. For the beginners the biggest challenge is to know the advantages and disadvantages of Social Media. Today we are going to talk about the Social Media – Advantages and Disadvantages. Many small business owners have not yet taken advantage of social media to help grow their business. It has become so vital for us to stay connected and convey the right message. To get the best out of this platform here are some tips and guidance for the beginners to know.

First of all some facts and figures of social media sites:

  • One in every nine people on earth is on Facebook
  • Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users everyday
  • One in four Americans watches a video online everyday
  • During the second half of 2010, LinkedIn membership base grew, on average, by 1 million new members every ten days

Connect: Facebook helps you connect and share with people in your life. Just think what was your life before Facebook invented? Was it more relax, exiting, boring or challenging? In Facebook we can create a personal profile, add other users as friends & exchange messages. If we talk about LinkedIn, it gives us the opportunity to connect with professionals across the globe. Whether you are using it for personal growth or spreading your business. It also gives you the opportunity to connect with business minded people like you. If we talk about Twitter, it is simply amazing! Twitter is a real time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas what you find interesting. It gives you an opportunity to know what’s happening around the world in 140 characters long tweet!

Interact: With your connections Facebook gives you an opportunity to let people know about you. You can share your photos, stories and create fan page. As a business, Facebook pages are a good source of feedback on your product/services. In LinkedIn you can interact with professionals on one single platform. You can discuss business, resources, ideas, learning opportunities and lot more. In Twitter, tweets are text based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the followers. On a personal level Twitters allows one to communicate with friends and families. On business level it connects your current & potential customers with your product & service.

Exchange: With the use of Facebook, we exchange joy, fun, sorrows, help and many more things at one place! Facebook slowly also being used like email. So this is one of the cost-effective ways to connected. With the use of LinkedIn we exchange professional expertise along with useful information which eventually enhances our professional brand. It also exchanges stronger business ideas with each other. On a business level, it helps us to exchange feedback, comments which eventually lead to increase business. On a personal level, it helps you in personal development. Twitter is a powerful tool for exchanging information and news as Twitter user often link to useful sites or articles & can be source of alternative news.

Disadvantages: As we discussed the Advantages of Social Media but we cannot ignore the Disadvantages just to be more secure on online platform.

Think about the viral potential of media. When news are negative and bad in taste, the same will happen with that brand. It is hard to undertake damage control when you are dealing with social media. Your name might get spoiled within hours. The best example is MacDonald’s Twitter promotion. According to Mail Online news article – Mac Fail! MacDonald’s Twitter promotion backfires as users highjack hash tag MacD stories to share fast food horror stories. Opponents accused the burger franchise of making customer vomit, serving pig meat from gestation crates and dishing up a burger containing a finger nail. Another disadvantage is to face threat from fake profile and ID. This is one of the biggest disadvantages of Facebook. People often use fake profile to insult or harassing someone. Students who are Facebook addicted do a bad result on his or her exams. One of the major risks of social networking and the Internet in general is breaches in privacy. These sites collect considerable amounts of personal information, with email addresses being one of the most collected pieces of personal data. Also these social networking sites possibly reduce persons’ compassion. You can check Twitter updates from your phone and send messages from anywhere. Social networking sites have the potential of having spreading negative or Anti-social messages. Amongst

As discussed above there are both Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking. One thing is clear; it is up to the person how he/she wants to get benefit from Social Media platform. In life we are often subjected to good and bad choices it is only we ourselves, who can decide what we want.

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